Jesse Jackson, noted climate expert, said while surveying the damage of Katrina in New Orleans last year: "Global warming is no longer academic, global warming is real."

Al Gore, former vice president and current environmental policy pimp has gravely warned Americans that, " We are altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe."

Whoh! Did you realize that the future of the galaxy--of the universe!--was at stake here?

Jackson and Gore are but only a few of the elder statesmen who, believing in the benificent superpower of the state, want that state to rein-in the unbalanced consumption of natural resources by U.S. citizens, who, though they produce more than the rest of the world, should certainly not be allowed to consume more.

In fact, the little known policy document, which for the sake of this post I will refer to as The Protocols of the Elders of Kyoto, suggests that Americans--particularly American capitalists-- have a secret plan to attain world domination through the mass manipulation of human behavior (i.e., the consumption of natural resources) ; and that global warming resulting from our American lifestyle is spawning mega-hurricanes and other natural disasters that will result in the death of millions if something is not done! If these planet-destroying monsters are not stopped, well...the destruction of the entire universe is imminent.

According to the Elders, unfettered capitalism in the hands of America is a WMD more real and dangerous than Saddam--or Mahmoud---with a nuke. And the only solution that can save mankind and the known universe is....more and bigger government; more regulations; more control of the means of production; yada yada yada.

It is all right there in the Protocols. Which, like most documents of its kind, conveys a "higher" truth, above and beyond what known science is able to achieve. Because, the sad, unacceptable truth is that known science is only at the stage of having a discussion about the origins and timeline of this global warming phenomenon. There are, in fact, many scientists (without the same credentials as Gore and Jackson, it is true) who actually have different hypotheses and theoretical analyses about what has been happening to the environment over the last 50 to 100 to 1000 years.

But, that is precisely why you need critical documents like The Protocols of the Elders of Kyoto--so that you can bypass all that pedestrian data and those contrary facts, and embrace those "higher truths" so often hidden from common sense and rational thought. And one of those higher truths is that, for the good of us all, environmental science must be politicized and immediately translated into public policy.Common sense and rational thought would suggest that science is far from achieving any real concensus on global warming; that the data are wildly inconclusive and often contradictory; that the danger, if it exists, may not even be amenable to quick fixes by government bureaucrats or grandiose international treaties--as hard as that is to believe.

Some would point out that this politicization of science is done not only by the Environmental Elders of the left, but also by those on the right who, for example, want to limit government funding of stem cell research. But consider this: all of the examples you can point to of the political right politicizing science actually result in less big government control over these issues--i.e., the cessation of government funding (which shockingly is not the same thing as "banning" such research) --not more.

If I were inclined to paranoia, I might even have the niggling and intrusive thought that perhaps-- just maybe--all the hysteria and fear-mongering generated by the eco-doomsayers has two simple goals: to establish the moral and intellectual superiority of the environmental Elders; and to establish their natural right to dictate and control the lifestyles and choices of all the rest of us. For the good of the planet and all of mankind, of course.

Perhaps it is just my imagination, but I seem to recall having heard the same utopian melody being played many times before....